Date of Award

1-1-1982

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

Abstract

The present investigation examined neuropsychological hypothesis of Stroop color-word interference. It was hypothesized that the combination of verbal and color content in one stimulus provided an opportunity to examine relative left- and right-hemisphere contributions to cognition in neurologically-intact subjects. Several individual difference variables of lateral brain function, including characteriological or trait anxiety and situation-specific arousal, were chosen as independent variables. Additionally, visual field of presentation and hand of response were systematically varied.Subjects consisted of neurologically intact psychiatric inpatients, professional hospital staff, undergraduate students, and members of the community as a whole. They received discretely projected Stroop color-word stimuli in the left and right visual fields, and were required to make motor matching responses.It was hypothesized that trait anxiety results in differentially greater left-hemisphere activation, and that there should therefore be better performance on tasks requiring left-hemisphere arousal from low to moderate levels of trait anxiety. At high levels, however, there should be performance decrements as the left-hemisphere becomes over-activated and inefficient. The results were consistent with these hypotheses for both the latency and accuracy of word-matching for individual color-word stimuli in both visual half-fields. Improvement in performance accuracy from low to moderate trait anxiety was slight and nonsignificant, however.It was also hypothesized that situation-specific arousal generally results in facilitated right hemisphere performance. The results were consistent with this hypothesis, too, in that latencies were generally longer and accuracy decreased in the aroused condition than the relaxed condition. Situation-specific arousal interacted with trait anxiety, such that highly trait-anxious subjects experienced less accurate responding and longer latencies when relaxed than when aroused. These results were discussed in terms of paradoxial effects of trait anxiety. Literature was reviewed suggesting trait anxiety may result in rigidity and stereotypy of cognitive functioning. This rigidity may impair ability to assume appropriate alternative cognitive skills. Clinical parallels in obsessive-compulsive, anxious, paranoid, and schizophrenic disorders were noted. Additionally, recent research in neurochemistry was noted, suggesting these effects may stem from lateralized neurotransmitter activity in the brain.

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